Chapter 31: Departures and reunions.
Saturday morning
“I wish I could stay,” I say between two little kisses, car keys dangling from my fingers. “But with Mom and Dad both still out… I don’t want Gerry to have to be at the restaurant all day on his own.”
Amy wraps Tinkerbell-sized arms around my waist, pulls me close once more, lands another kiss on the underneath side of my jaw. Then she lets go. “Okay. You’re a better big sister than I’ve ever been.”
“I seriously doubt that.”
She closes my hand around the car keys. “Go. Before I change my mind and kidnap you, take you home to the B&B for the rest of the day.”
“You’re needed elsewhere anyway,” I remind her. “Isn’t the rehearsal and the dinner tonight?”
She rolls her eyes. “Yes. Unfortunately. Which — you’ll come with me to the wedding on Sunday, won’t you?”
I think for a second. We hadn’t discussed me coming to the wedding until now, but if I’m being honest, I have to admit that I want all the time I can get with her between now and her departure from Ohio on Wednesday morning.
“What time is the wedding, again?” I ask. “The after-church crowd gets busy, but we close early Sunday nights.”
“Six o’clock. At the Lutheran Church.”
“St. Peter’s? I know that one. How about I let you know tomorrow morning? PJ’s arriving home today, so if he can cover me…”
“Can I drop by the restaurant tonight?” she asks. “After the rehearsal dinner? I could help you guys close.”
“Don’t be silly, you don’t need to help us.”
“I know I don’t ‘need’ to, but it will give me an excuse to visit,” she says with a shrug.
I kiss the top of her head. “You never need an excuse. I’d love for you to visit.”
The smile she gives me in return is shy. She walks backward a few steps. “I’ll see you tonight, then.”
#
My phone buzzes before I make it even a mile from the lakeside cabin, a video chat request flashing at me from where the phone sits in its air vent holder. I know I should probably wait until I’m stationary and not try to video chat and drive at the same time, but when I see who’s calling, I can’t help myself. I accept the call with a grin.
“How’s Ohio?” the voice on the other end says.
I give the screen a quick glance, see that Alex is in her living room, probably sitting on the couch with her laptop on the coffee table. A head of messy blonde hair passes by in the background behind her.
“Shitty as ever,” I say cheerfully. “How’s the Deep South? Warming up yet?”
“Who are you talking to?” I hear Graham ask off-screen. The blonde hair reappears in the frame, and a face hovers over Alex’s shoulder. “Hey — Anika!” Then her brow crinkles and she says, “You shouldn’t be video chatting while driving, you know.”
“I know. But since we’re practically in the same time zone for now, I didn’t want to miss the chance.”
“Same time zone?” Graham asks, the crease in her brow deepening.
“Alex didn’t tell you? I’m in Ohio.”
Graham smacks Alex playfully on the back of the head. “Nooo. You know she never tells me anything.”
“Did she tell you my mom’s sick?”
Graham nods sympathetically. “Now that I did hear about. How’s your family?”
“Driving me fucking crazy. Gerry’s clean, though. And he seems to be doing really good.”
“How long are you going to be home for?” Alex asks.
I admit to her that I don’t really know, reminding her of how I broke my contract to be here and that my basketball career is most likely over. Graham meanders out of the frame when we start talking basketball, while Alex and I go over the highlights of the NCAA tournament season this year. Rosemont got knocked out early, during the Sweet Sixteen, a sensitive topic that Alex is still grouchy about. After basketball, the conversation roams to Danny and Aria, and how Aria’s walking now and talking up a storm, and Danny’s latest obsession is birdwatching.
“Birdwatching?” I ask, surprised.
“I think it has more to do with the binoculars than the birds,” Alex says. “Graham says he’ll either grow up to be a zoologist, a super spy, or a peeping tom.”
We share a laugh.
“Speaking of kids…” I trail off, clear my throat. “So, uh, Jenny came by the restaurant a couple times this week. She’s up to three kids now. I got to meet the two little ones.”
“Jenny?” Alex says, eyebrows dipping. “As in Pearson? I thought you weren’t talking to her?”
I shrug. “I wasn’t. But she wanted to… mend fences or some shit.”
“I think she wanted to mend a hell of a lot more than that,” says Marty McFly, who has appeared in the passenger’s seat next to me.
There’s a moment of silence. “And?” Alex says.
“And what?”
“And did you mend your fences?”
“Go on. Tell her,” McFly says.
“I don’t know. Maybe,” I say to Alex. “She said some shit last night… maybe it was just the alcohol speaking, but… She and Mason are splitting up, and then kind of implied that she wants us to try again.”
Alex studies me thoughtfully. “It’s a pretty bold move on her part, after everything you two have gone through. But — wait. You’re not actually considering that, right?”
I’m at a stop light, so I look down at the phone, meet Alex’s eyes for a second. “No,” I say firmly, then backpedal with, “I mean, I don’t think so. Maybe if things were different for me right now… Or if…”
From the passenger’s seat, McFly hums a bar of Celine Dion. I shoot the evil-ass figment of my imagination a glare before turning back to Alex.
“What I’m trying to say is — I met someone recently. On the plane from Toronto to Cleveland. And… it’s too early to say anything for sure, but I really like her.”
I tell Alex a little about Amy, confess that we’ve been seeing a lot of each other lately, and then say that even though it’s only been a week, I think there might be something there. Something real. Something worth seeing through.
She chuckles when I finish. “You are so U-Hauling right now.”
“I am not!” I say. But my face burns.
“You so are.”
“Fuck you, Woods.”
Alex cocks her head to the side. “Does Amy know about Jenny?”
“Yeah. They met by accident at the restaurant. And I told Amy how long Jenny and I were together and everything. So that’s out in the open.”
“But did you tell her what Jenny said to you last night? About divorcing Mason and wanting another try with you?”
I shake my head. “Amy and I… spent the second half of our night a little too busy to talk.”
This earns a brief arched eyebrow from Alex. It’s a look so arrogantly fucking regal and knowing that I remember why we nicknamed her Commander.
“You slept with her already?” she says. “That’s fast. Even for you.”
I roll my eyes. “Fucking don’t even. Look who’s talking.”
She holds up both hands defensively. “Hey. I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m a happily married woman.” Then she brings it back to the point. “Did you tell this Amy girl what Jenny said or not?”
“Of course I didn’t,” I scoff. “What was I going to do? Wait for her to go down on me and then be like, ‘Oh, by the way, shorty, my ex is divorcing her husband, and named her daughter after me, and is kind of acting like she wants me back.’ Talk about ruining the fucking mood.”
“Hold up. Did you just say Jenny named her daughter after you?”
“So she says. She named her Annie.”
The eyebrow arches again. Alex knows that Jenny’s the only one outside my family who I ever let call me Ani. There’s a long silence on the other end, so long that I check the phone a few times to make sure the call didn’t drop.
“You are considering getting back together with Jenny,” Alex says at last. “Aren’t you?”
“No!” I say immediately, as indignant as I was a moment earlier when she accused me of being a fucking U-Haul lesbian. But McFly starts humming Celine Dion again, and I sigh. “I mean… Maybe somewhere way in the back of my mind, subconsciously…”
“So that’s what you’re calling me now?” McFly asks. “Your subconscious?”
“I don’t know,” I say to Alex after a moment of silence. “I can’t say I didn’t feel anything when I held her last night.”
“Held her? Now you were holding her?” Alex asks, voice going up an octave.
“I told you. She was drunk — or tipsy, I don’t know, but she started crying about the past, about how much she hated the way everything had gotten so fucked-up between us, and so… yeah. I gave her a hug. And it… lasted a while. I let her cry it out.”
Graham reappears at the side of the frame. “Who’s crying it out?” she asks me. “Your mom?”
“No,” Alex says, turning her head. “Jenny.”
“Jenny?” Graham repeats. She looks from me to Alex. “Anika’s Jenny?”
“Yeah, that Jenny,” Alex confirms. “She told Anika she named her daughter after her, and she’s divorcing her husband, and she wants to get back together. And so Anika held a crying Jenny one minute, then went and fucked some new girl she just met the next.”
Graham kicks Alex lightly. “Watch your language, hot stuff. Your son is sitting at the table in the other room.” Then she swivels towards the screen, bends down a bit to look at me, puts both her hands on her hips. “But please tell me you didn’t do what Alex just said you did.”
“It wasn’t like that,” I say, defending myself. “There was nothing… sexual about holding Jenny.” Marty McFly cackles loudly from the passenger’s seat. “I just wanted her to, I don’t know, calm the fuck down. And feel better.”
“Am I remembering incorrectly, or did you tell us that you hooked up with her a couple of times five years ago when you went back home for your sister’s wedding?” Graham challenges. I don’t respond right away, and of course Graham, being Graham, sees that as a reason to keep pushing. “So if Jenny were here right now, and I asked what that moment meant to her, would she say it was totally innocent?”
I heave a frustrated sigh but don’t reply. Graham shakes her head disdainfully.
“Careful, buddy,” Alex says. “You are about one inch away from stepping into a hot pile of steaming shit.”
Graham kicks Alex again, hard enough to make her wince this time. “Language!”
“I know, I know,” I admit miserably. “But it’s just… it’s not that easy to have a clear head when she’s standing right in front of me, crying her eyes out, and I’m holding her, and she’s all but saying she’s available and wants to get back together.”
Graham plops down on the sofa next to Alex, leans into her. “You left Jenny for a reason. And you stopped talking to her for a reason, too,” she says. “Plus, if you have someone else in your life now, your actions are going to impact more than just the two of you.”
“I wouldn’t say I ‘have someone’ in my life. That would be overstating it.”
“But you slept with her?” Graham asks.
“…Yeah.”
“And was there a mutual understanding that it was just a one-time thing?”
“No.” Kinda the fucking opposite, I think, but I keep that to myself.
Graham crosses her arms against her chest. “Then you have someone else in your life.”
Alex lifts her chin, which is the Alex Woods way of indicating her silent agreement.
I groan. “Jesus Christ. I think I’m having a mid-life crisis.”
Graham glances at Alex, then back to me. “I think you need to figure out what you want, Anika,” she says gently. “Before someone gets hurt.”
“Yeah. I know,” I say with a sigh. “Listen, I’m almost back at the restaurant. I should let you go.”
“How’s the restaurant?” Alex asks.
“Fuck, speaking of hot piles of shit, that’s a whole other thing I have to deal with. But too much to get into right now,” I add when her eyebrows quirk into an unspoken question. I reach for the phone, about to end the call. “I’ll talk to you guys later.”
“Bye,” Alex says. “Try to be good.”
“Anika, wait a second,” Graham says.
“What?”
“Sort out your shit.”
Alex smiles crookedly, pokes Graham’s cheek. “Language,” she scolds.
“Oh, hush.”
“I’ve gotta go, guys,” I tell them.
“Alright,” Graham says. She and Alex wave goodbye simultaneously. They’ve been moving like fucking synchronized swimmers for a long-ass time, and it stings to watch, so I terminate the call quickly, right as I pull into the Soul Mountain parking lot.
A shiny silver Merc sits in the spot closest to the entrance — Dutch’s car. A clean, new, but less pretentious Camry sits next to it. Pennsylvania plates. When I get out, I hear its engine still cooling.
So. PJ’s arrived. The family reunion is finally complete.